DINGLEY, Robert

In the biography of Robert Dingley† (c.1377-1456) of Wolverton, the former shire-knight for Hampshire, it was assumed that the MP for Ludgershall in 1453 was the ‘nephew’ called Robert to whom he left bequests in his will.3 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 788-9; PCC 8 Stokton (PROB11/4, f. 56). However, ‘nepos’ also means grandson, and it seems clear that the elderly Robert was in fact referring to the namesake who, as the son of his son and heir William, stood directly in line to inherit the Dingley family estates in Hampshire and elsewhere. That it was this grandson who sat for the Wiltshire borough is certain, for he had married a daughter of William Ludlow, the royally-appointed keeper of the town and manor of Ludgershall. What attracted the ambitious Ludlow to a marriage alliance with the Dingleys was the knowledge that, all being well, young Robert would inherit their substantial landed holdings in succession to his grandfather and father – he could be assured of his daughter’s improved status as member of a leading gentry family.

At an unknown date before 1437 Robert Dingley the elder had settled the manor of Wolverton in jointure on his son William (shortly to become a member of the royal Household) and the latter’s wife, Margaret de Foxcott.4 Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/677-8; VCH Hants, iv. 271. Margaret herself had inherited a distant claim to this same manor (as well as to a moiety of ‘Morehalle’ in Norfolk and a fourth part of that of ‘Churughton’ in Wiltshire), by virtue of her descent from Renaud Fitzherbert (d.1348). She was also the heiress of the manor of Stanford in Berkshire, where, in the parish church, she was later to be buried,5 CP40/706, rot. 308; VCH Berks. iv. 111 (although our MP is there confused with his gdfa.). and in addition she brought to her marriage to William Dingley the manor of Foxcott.6 Feudal Aids, ii. 347, 370. William ranked among the esquires of the King’s hall and chamber in the 1440s and early 1450s,7 E101/409/11, f. 38; 16, f. 34; 410/1, f. 30; 410/3; 6, f. 39v; 9, f. 42v. and it was probably at the royal court that he made the acquaintance of William Ludlow, a prominent official in the King’s cellars. The marriage between their children may have taken place before December 1451, when a kinsman of the groom, Richard Dingley of Middelton, Kent, made a gift of goods and chattels to the two fathers in association with others, including our MP.8 CCR, 1454-61, p. 291. Cf, CCR, 1461-8, p. 137 and The Commons, ii. 786-9 for their relationships. The latter, then described as a ‘gentleman’, must have been still a relatively young man, perhaps barely come of age.

Dingley’s election to the Parliament of 1453 was no doubt secured by his father-in-law, who had sat in the Commons for Ludgershall on four earlier occasions, and now accompanied him to Reading for the assembly on 6 Mar. There were some irregularities in their return, in that both their names were written over erasures on the electoral indenture completed by the sheriff of Wiltshire. However, there is no way of knowing at what stage the changes were made – whether in the shire court at Wilton or when the return reached the clerk of the Parliaments.9 C219/16/2. Dingley’s movements are not recorded over the period the Parliament was in being (it was dissolved at Westminster in April 1454). His grandfather and namesake died in April 1456, and on the following 26 Oct. he himself formally confirmed his father William in his life-tenure in the manor of Wolverton and in lands and tenements elsewhere in Hampshire at Baughurst and Kingsclere, as conferred on his parents by his grandfather.10 Hants RO, Chute (Vyne) mss, 31M57/697-8. William served as a commissioner of array in the hundred of Kingsclere in September 1457, but Robert himself is not known to have ever been appointed to an ad hoc royal commission, and he remained in the background of local and national affairs.

For many years the Dingleys had intermittently had dealings with Edward Langford*, the lord of the Berkshire manor of Bradfield, of which Stanford ‘Dingley’ (which belonged to Robert’s maternal family) formed a part.11 Brookes, 194-5; VCH Berks. iv. 111. For instance, in 1447 Langford had entered recognizances to Robert’s grandfather, and four years later he had sued him and Robert’s father for a breach of contract.12 CCR, 1441-7, p. 486; CP40/760, rot. 223. Nevertheless, the families drew closer, their alliance being cemented by an agreement that our MP’s own son and heir, Edward, should marry Sancha, one of Langford’s large brood. Perhaps as part of the arrangements, in July 1458 Robert entered bonds in 1,000 marks to Langford at the staple of Westminster, and in the following year when a settlement was made on him and his issue of the manors of Middle Aston in Oxfordshire and Brimpton in Berkshire, Langford appeared as a party to the transaction.13 C241/254/10; Brookes, 191, 193-6 (a ped. and acct. which, however, contain errors); CIPM Hen. VII, i. 877, 963. Brimpton did not in the event pass in Dingley’s line: rather it fell to William Stokes (d.1477) the son of John Stokes of Brimpton who had agreed to grant the reversion of the manors to Dingley and his issue: VCH Berks. iv. 52. An explanation for the final concord of early 1459, whereby Dingley relinquished his reversionary interest in Stanford (still held for life by his father) to a group of men headed by (Sir) Edmund Hampden*, and to the latter’s heirs, is difficult to find, but although this looks like a sale to the knight, the manor did descend in the Dingley family later in the century.14 CP25(1)/13/86/22; VCH Berks. iv. 111.

In September 1458, now called ‘esquire’, Dingley had witnessed deeds whereby the lawyer Thomas Tropenell* enfeoffed Robert, 2nd Lord Hungerford, and others including Dingley’s father-in-law Ludlow of land at Great Chalfield in Wiltshire, and he and Ludlow endorsed other conveyances on Tropenell’s behalf in the summer of 1460, at a time of intense civil conflict, a matter of days before the battle of Northampton.15 Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 134, 136, 369-71. Dingley’s closest associates in this period were staunch partisans of the house of Lancaster: Langford was almost certainly with Henry VI’s army at its defeat at Northampton, and Ludlow, whose long career had been spent entirely in the King’s service, was to fall swiftly from favour when the Yorkists took control of the government. Sir Edmund Hampden, chamberlain of the household of the young prince of Wales, defended the Tower of London against the Yorkist earls, and then joined the queen’s forces in the north of England. Perhaps Dingley followed him to Towton, and later joined him in exile, initially in Scotland and then in France in the queen’s entourage. In November 1469 Dingley’s father, possibly not knowing whether he was alive or dead, obtained a royal licence to make a settlement of Wolverton and its advowson in jointure on his second wife, Anne Mompeson, and their male issue, with remainder to himself and his right heirs, excluding any mention of our MP by name.16 CPR, 1467-77, p. 182; VCH Hants, iv. 271. It may be that the latter was already dead, but it was not until Henry VI had been restored to the throne that Chancery issued writs de diem clausit extremum for confirmation of his demise. Even so, neither those addressed to the escheator of Oxfordshire on 14 Dec. 1470 or to his counterpart in Gloucestershire and the march of Wales on the following 7 Feb. elicited a response.17 CFR, xx. 267-8. Edward Langford thought he might still be alive: in July 1471 he took action on the bond Dingley had entered 13 years earlier, in connexion with the marriage of their children, and writs for Dingley’s arrest for non-payment were optimistically sent to the sheriffs of four counties, but with no effect.18 C241/254/10.

Subsequently, the Dingley manor of Ervill’s Exton in Hambledon, Hampshire, fell to the Ludlows, by what title is not clear,19 CP25(1)/207/33/28; VCH Hants, iii. 241. but the rest of the Dingley estates continued to be held by our MP’s father William and his wife Anne, the two of them not only outliving Robert but also his son and heir Edward, who died on 23 Aug. 1485. Given the date of Edward’s death it may be speculated that he died as a consequence of wounds received at the battle of Bosworth the day before.20 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 715. William, proving to be as long-lived as his father, himself died on 3 Mar. 1487; Sancha Dingley (his grandson Edward’s widow), in 1494; and the next heir Thomas (our MP’s grandson) in 1502. The last in the male line, Thomas left a posthumously-born infant, Elizabeth, to inherit the family estates.21 Ibid. i. 280, 876-7, 963-5; ii. 256, 578-80, 670; CPR, 1485-94, p. 472. Our MP’s stepmother Anne was still living in 1504 when the Dingley manor of Malshanger in Church Oakley was sold by Elizabeth’s guardians to the archbishop of Canterbury.22 VCH Hants, iv. 224-5.